We've researched, we've brainstormed, we've debated, and now Team i3 is rolling up our sleeves to start hacking! "But wait!" you say "Who *is* Team i3?" We have hackers of all kinds, about a dozen of us in total. We put together a video to introduce some of our members. Be sure to check back next week to meet the rest of the team!
We also received our first parts order this past week, and we've got some cool parts to work with! We chose an ATmega48 for our microcontroller, mainly to take advantage of the open source tools and community surrounding it. We're hoping to use a 10F Supercap to power our units, but we might have to go with plain ol' batteries depending on time. We also picked up a ZigBee MRF24FJ20 to use for radio communication. It's not the cheapest option, but it handles a lot of the nasty details that we probably won't have time to handle in code.
One of our biggest challenges so far has been to keep the spirit and uniqueness of our original idea alive, while cutting away any unnecessary features that could keep us from finishing on time. We want to get our project in the hands of real teachers and students, and not just after the contest, but before it's over!